Articles by Herschel Smith

KGAB.com:

This looks challenging.

News From Florida:

A man, woman and cable repair worker were tied up as two young children witnessed two armed men raid a home in Miami-Dade on Sunday afternoon, police said.

Jennifer Capote, with the Miami-Dade Police Department, said a Comcast cable worker was inside the home at 2203 NW 104th Terrace doing repairs when the robbers, claiming to be Miami police and dressed in body armor, stormed into the home about 3:30 p.m.

Police said the intruders tied up the cable man, mother and father as their children, ages 3 and 12, looked on.

Police said the men got away with jewelry and about $500 in cash.

A neighbor’s surveillance captured the moments leading up to the violent robbery.

“There were two gentlemen that came out of the car and came through over here dressed up as cops,” neighbor Glenda Mendez said. “This neighborhood has never had any problems or any issues going on. It is very scary.”

For those of you who are LEOs, do you understand?  Does this ring any bells with you as home owners and family members?  Does it make any sense to you that this is number 18,399 on the list of reasons not to conduct home raids, even if they are intended to find evidence of wrong-doing?

Well, does it?  I hope a LEO weighs in, because it’s crystal clear to me and most readers.  In addition to your felt need to “go home safely at the end of your shift,” we have an equivalent need to be safe in our own homes, to prevent flash-bang grenades from being thrown into our toddler’s cribs, to prevent your reflexively shooting our family dogs, and to prevent street thugs like this from raiding our homes under the guise of being police officers.

You see, we can’t just lay down and let people screaming “police, police, get the fuck on the floor, police, police” … come into our homes without countering those efforts with close quarters battle.  Because they may not be police.  And even if they are, does it matter whether a criminal from the streets shoots up my home or a criminal with a badge and gun throws a flash-bang at my wife or child?  The end result is the same, yes?

Ted Cruz:

“The Fourth Circuit used to be the most conservative court in the country,” Cruz said. “The Fourth Circuit now, they’ve invented this new test for the Second Amendment.”

The test, Cruz explained, says “the Second Amendment doesn’t protect a weapon if it would be useful in a military context.” The senator noted the absurdity of such a test, given the amendment reads:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” (Emphasis added.)

“This test isn’t just sort of questionable, it isn’t just a little bit out there. It is nuts!” Cruz exclaimed. “The Second Amendment was designed explicitly to protect weapons that would be useful in a military conflict.”

He added, “If we were living back in 1789, your musket would be really useful in a military conflict!”

“You want to know the first gun control law in America?” Cruz asked the audience. “The first Congress passed a law mandating that all able-bodied men must own a musket.”

“That’s an individual mandate we could live with,” Mark Levin quipped.

David Codrea:

True, both he and Ellison have long histories of oath-breaking and subversion. Both are for cultural terraforming of the Republic through “immigration” and “refugee” actions to bring in and embed or sanction existing unvetted foreign nationals. And both are hostile to the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

But Ellison is more vulnerable to exploitable suspicions over his agenda and motives …

Well, they certainly picked the least vulnerable ass-clown.  But make no mistake about it, this ass-clown will run as fast as he can down the road to cultural chaos and transformation in order to destroy liberty.

As Kurt Schlichter recently observed, “it’s reasonable to wonder how this can end peacefully.”  You haven’t stopped preparing, have you?  You haven’t stopped activism, have you?  We’re just in the skirmishes.  There is much more to come.

Nancy Rockwell:

This weekend, in a workshop on Islam, the leader illustrated the purpose of Islam’s five-times-a-day prayer practice by talking about things that are enticing and hard to resist, and things that are habitual and hard to give up.

Sugar, she said, and told about her own attempts to give up sweet things, and how, when she succeeded for a few months, she felt free. Alcohol, drugs, anger, fear, she went on to talk about these as human habits hard to break without a constant reinforcement of strength beyond what is normal for us humans.

Not, she thought, violence. I wonder about that. Americans have a hard time even contemplating giving up guns.

[ … ]

God, for whom the Temple keeps humans in prayerful connection, does not seek a servant who will keep the power to survive death as a right of survival owed to him as God’s chosen one. In fact, the Temple teaches acceptance of death

[ … ]

Jesus does not, in the wilderness of his temptations, assume a discipline of prayer. He drags up, from deep within himself, responses strong enough to send the Tempter away.

This is what passes for “scholarship” in some “churches.”  It’s really very said.  Islam is all about cleaning up the heart, is non-violent to the point that Americans who refuse to give up their guns are the ones who she worries about.

Never mind that the Crusades had to be fought as a defensive war to free Europe from the clutches of Mohammedans who had raped, killed and pillaged the people.  Never mind that Christians are – unfortunately – the most passive people on earth.

No, according to her, we should be willing to perish at the hands of whomever, whenever.  But she confuses acceptance of God’s sovereign choice with man’s responsibility to act on all sorts of things, in all sorts of situations.  No man should sit on his ass while people give him food to eat (2 Thess 3:10).  And no man should willingly give up his life to robbers or killers when he can protect the image of God within him.  Nor should he be prepared to give up the lives of others (John 15:13).

This woman obviously doesn’t understand the scriptures any more than she does Islam.  And as for Christ during the temptations, he fasted, which always includes prayer, Biblically speaking, and he cited Scripture back at the tempter.

Whomever hired this impostor to “preach” should forthwith fire her and put her to work washing dishes, or something she can actually do.  But they probably won’t, and thus does America continue to languish at the hands of false teachers.

News from Florida:

PUNTA GORDA, Florida — The police chief of a Florida Gulf Coast town and one of his officers have been charged in connection with the accidental fatal shooting of a woman last year at a citizen’s police academy.

In August, Punta Gorda police Officer Lee Coel fired the fatal shot during a drill involving civilians at the police academy facility. Mary Knowlton, a 73-year-old retired Minnesota mother of two, died at a hospital.

Coel was charged Wednesday with one count of felony manslaughter.

“I don’t see how the facts as we know it would amount to criminal negligence as opposed to simple negligence,” attorney Jerry Berry told CNN affiliate WINK. CNN reached out to Berry but didn’t get an immediate response.

Chief Tom Lewis will face one count of misdemeanor culpable negligence.

“Looking at the totality of the facts and evidence brought our office to this decision,” State Attorney Stephen Russell said.

AL.com:

Pistol permits are a financial boon to the Madison County sheriff’s department but that’s not why Sheriff Blake Dorning opposes a Senate bill that would eliminate them.

“We hear it’s just a money thing,” Dorning said Wednesday.

I wonder where he’s hearing that?

“No, it’s not. It’s a life and death safety issue for our men and women because the equipment we’re able to provide them with drastically makes them more efficient and more able to address the situations that they come into every day.”

Dorning and other top department officials held a press conference Wednesday to follow up on the open letter the sheriff posted online over the weekend.

Capt. Michael Salomonsky outlined a handful of cases where law enforcement tracked down criminals through their pistol permits as evidence for the need to oppose the bill introduced by Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa.

The bill would repeal the requirement to have a permit to conceal carry a pistol. It would also allow conceal carry at events such as demonstrations and protest rallies. Without the criminal background checks required for a permit, applicants with a violent criminal past would be able to conceal carry, Dorning said.

Officials also met head-on the issue of money associated with the permit fees, saying that the permits yield about $700,000 annually to the department.

[ … ]

“Without technology, you’re almost going back 20 years to a deputy who just has the basics,” Jernigan said. “I really feel this community wants a professionally trained and a professionally equipped law enforcement agency to go out and protect the public.”

Jernigan said pistol permit fees are not an infringement on the Second Amendment, which provides for the right to bear arms. Jernigan it’s no different than paying a fee for a drivers license, marriage license, hunting license or car registration.

Thanks for self-identifying as a liar.  Driving a car is not mentioned in the constitution.  And if you really feel that the community wants the things you say you think you need, then why not make that case straight to the community and let them decide whether they want to fund them or not?

Oh, it’s because you have people who want to defend their lives over a barrel.  This is a forced tax of a targeted set of people for exercising what God and the founders consider an inalienable right.  You know it’s true.

In telling me it’s not all about the money, and then spending so much effort try to tell us what you need the money for, you’ve told us it’s all about the money.  So we’re back where we started, and you have no case.

James Woods.

Oh nice.  Two important hash tags there in a single entry.  It looks like someone has been reading Voat, yes?

As for Podesta, is someone getting ready to throw you under the bus, Skippy?  Are you scared?  I’m not.

Judicial Watch:

An average of 400 “criminal illegal immigrants” are being released every 10 days by the newly elected sheriff in Arizona’s most populous county, federal law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch, many of them violent offenders. It’s part of Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone’s new policy to protect illegal aliens, even those who have committed serious state crimes, from deportation. Under a longtime partnership between the county and the feds, the Phoenix field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was notified when “aliens unlawfully present with additional Arizona charges” were released from the Maricopa County Jail, which is one of the nation’s largest with a population of about 8,000. That ended when Penzone, who refers to illegal immigrants as “guests,” took office this year and, though he formally announced the change last week, it was put into practice much earlier.

During a recent 10-day period, more than 400 criminal illegal immigrants were released from the Maricopa County Jail, according to federal law enforcement officials directly involved in the process in Phoenix. Weekdays are the busiest, with an average of about 40 criminal illegal aliens getting released from Maricopa County Jail facilities, the sources said. On weekends the number drops to about ten each day. The illegal aliens have state criminal charges ranging from misdemeanors to felonies, driving under the influence and drug offenses. “There’s no telling how many criminals he’s (Sheriff Penzone) putting on the streets,” said a high-ranking federal law enforcement official stationed in Arizona. Judicial Watch’s calls to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office were not returned.

Before the new sheriff changed the system, ICE would send a wagon every 12 hours to pick up criminal illegal aliens scheduled to be released from the main jail in Maricopa County. Under the new policy, Maricopa County officials are not giving ICE “any notification at all of the release of criminal illegals,” according to an agency official in Phoenix who’s not authorized to talk and can’t be identified. Without cooperation from county authorities, federal agents would have to stand at the door to the jail 24 hours a day and guess which prisoner should be deported, sources said. “We can’t stand out there and question everyone that walks out of that jail,” said a federal agent directly involved in the matter. “Even if we did, we would have to make arrests on the street, in the middle of protestors, families and picketers and that will only heighten the danger to agents.”

When Penzone announced the new policy at a press conference last week, ICE issued a statement calling it an “immediate, dangerous change.” The agency’s Phoenix director for enforcement and removal operations, Enrique Lucero, was quoted in local media saying: “Immigration detainers have been a successful enforcement tool to prevent the release of dangerous criminals to our streets and mitigate the possibility of future crimes being committed against the residents of our communities.” Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain specific figures and pertinent information related to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s policies involving criminal illegal aliens. “This is as bad as it gets,” said one federal officer.

Dangerous indeed.  The thought occurs to me to ask how much money will be spent on imprisonment, food, “free” medical care, transport, policing time and effort, education for their children, burial, and all of the other costs associated with having such criminals in our midst.

I hope you’re having fun with all of that down in Maricopa County.  Make sure to lock your doors at night, and in the day time, and don’t ever let your children be alone, and make sure to carry weapons at all times.  In short, watch your six.

Because I’m paying for this carnival-from-hell with my tax money.  As I said, I’m getting damn tired of paying everyone’s bills.  I have my own to pay, and according to God, this is called theft.  My, my, how votes can turn into “legalized” theft.  It’s shameful.